The China Veto
[Updated below] For those who still doubt that the South Korean government would bow to another government’s sensitivities to cancel an artistic performance — witness the debate and denial over the censorship of “Yoduk Story” — I suppose we can now put those doubts to rest.
On January 7, several major South Korean media published editorials that criticized the Korean government for kowtowing to the Chinese communist regime by canceling the New Tang Dynasty’s (NTDTV) New Year Spectacular in Seoul. The criticizing media included South Korea’s most widely distributed news paper Chosun Ilbo and the Kyung Hyang Daily News, which is very influential among Korean intellectuals.
The show was cancelled just one day before its original planned date. NTDTV stated on its website that the National Theater of Korea cancelled the show because of pressure from the South Korea Ministry of Culture, which in turn has been directly pressured by the Chinese communist regime behind the scene.
The initial reason given by the theater for the cancellation was that the Chinese communist regime, who had been protesting very strongly to the the Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claimed that NTDTV was an organization hostile to China. The Ministry of Culture issued an official document requesting the cancellation of the show. Later on, the Theater retracted that “the Ministry of Culture had never issued an official document” and that the show was cancelled because NTDTV did not follow the contract.
So let me see if I understand this: completely fictional, sensationalized propa-tainment like “The Host” and “No Gun Ri” receives government subsidies and protection, while South Korea shuts down an apolitical Chinese New Year festival and “Yoduk Story.” We may have the first two documented cases of the Nuclear Heckler’s Veto.
Update: More Putinization from the Roh Administration:
President Roh Moo-hyun on Tuesday instructed his Cabinet to open an investigation into whether South Korean media organizations are colluding to distort his government’s policies.
In an unusually bitter criticism against local media, the president said Korean news organizations pose the strongest resistance to his government’s society-wide reform programs.
How will “progressives” like the new official contempt from free speech if Lee Myung Bak inherits this extraordinary new power? Something tells me that Lee won’t take a very restrained approach in throttling his opponents.
7 Responses
-
Pingback: OneFreeKorea » Here Comes the Election!
Ah, Korea is voluntarily becoming a vassal state of PRC? Kowtow not to mention Uri calling PRC their ally? Be careful what you wish for and learn the history of countless invasions over last few thousand years.
Bah, nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Korea’s been puckering up to the great Han arse for far longer than she’s been bitching and moaning about the evil round eye.
Business as usual.
I saw “The Host”. I actually didn’t think that a lot of Americans would find the film offensive. It’s too tongue-in-cheek. I think the movie was a pretty good reflection of the “popular” Korean view of US, S Korean demonstrators, etc. If you are a ROK left winger, you could have easily seen the movie as an attack on student activism.
I honestly believe to say that “The Host” is anti-american is like saying that “Team America” is anti-korean.
I just want to add that if you watch the movie carefully, you’d pick up on South Korean nuances—i.e. Student Activists are largely kids who don’t want to study and has too much time on their hands—who learn useless skills and end up homeless. It’s a pretty gross exaggeration of Korea’s left and right, and doesn’t really say a whole lot about what politics should be like or anything.
This movie is a very different animal from Yodok Story.
I guess having not seen The Host, I must rely on how Jung Chung-Rae reacted to it, and the choice of a half-decade-old non-story for a plot premise. But my point does not depend on comparing Yoduk Story to The Host, only in contrasting the government’s treatment of the two messages.
South Korea’s government supports its film industry artificially, and subsidies inevitably radicalize industries in directions that the grant-writers favor. Witness the government’s support for OhMynews and its opposition to the Chosun Ilbo, and its support for some “civic” groups that turned out to be little more than thugs. As a result, you seldom see them breathe a bad word about China or North Korea, or a good word about the United States.
You can also wonder how this will change if the government changes this year. I suspect we’ll see the subsidies reduced or ended, and we’ll also see rougher police action against violent demonstrations. But the extraordinary creative artistry and far-left views tend to both be products of people who follow their emotions — and often, of souls in states of tension — so I doubt that the creative arts will be dominated by conservatives.
Regardless of the viewpoints expressed, I oppose government subsidies or censorship of political speech. By intervening in the public conversation this way, the Korean government is showing what should be obvious: that it is no friend or ally of the American people.